


The Customer is Always Left

by JacquelineHyde



Category: Fire Emblem Heroes
Genre: Alfonse has a really stupid bucket list, Alfonse is Extremely Annoyed, Anna has Thoughts on how to run a successful business, Gen, Hel is Very Confused
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-03-05
Updated: 2019-03-05
Packaged: 2019-11-12 02:56:34
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,813
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18002486
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/JacquelineHyde/pseuds/JacquelineHyde
Summary: By the time Hel arrives –five weeks late– to claim Alfonse's soul and spirit it away to her shadowy realm of the dead, he's angry.Veryangry. Bordering onfurious.Written before Book 4, Chapter 4 came out, because I was super-anxious about Alfonse's fate, and needed to cheer myself up with some nonsense. Posted just now, because hey, why not?





	The Customer is Always Left

**Author's Note:**

> So I wrote most of this the night before Chapter 4 of Book 4 came out, in a fit of worry for my fluffy little blueberry cupcake, and because the idea of Hel giving Alfonse nine days to live and then not showing up for five weeks is unreasonably funny to me. Obviously, this bears no resemblance to what actually happened in the game, but let's be real, nothing I write will ever be supported by what actually happens in the game, unless the creators go completely off the rails.

By the time Hel arrives to claim Alfonse's soul and spirit it away to her shadowy, bleak realm of the dead, he's angry.

 _Very_ angry. Bordering on _furious_.

Not that he's been _happy_ about the turn of events that has been leading to his inevitable death, and yes, part of it was anger at being cheated out of the long life he'd always assumed he would have, but that had faded quickly, to be replaced by fear and sorrow as the ninth day after Hel's initial curse drew closer.

Of course, that in turn had faded as the ninth day came and went, with no sign of the grim specter of death, followed by the tenth, and the eleventh, and the twelfth, and so forth for the next _thirty-seven days_.

He's been looking into where to address his strongly-worded letter of complaint.

“Oh, you finally made it,” he notes pleasantly, setting aside his book and climbing from his bed as Hel glides across the floor, seeming borne up on a cloud of eerie purple mist. “Did you have a lot of trouble finding the place?”

“Doomed boy,” Hel murmurs in a chilling hiss. “Your life shall end now.”

Alfonse crosses his arms, huffing in annoyance.

“Really? We're just going to ignore the fact that you're _five weeks late_? Listen, I understand that Overlord of the Underworld must be a very busy job title, but it's like Commander Anna says: if you want to run a successful business, you need to make each customer feel like they matter.”

“...Business?” Hel repeats, a definite note of bewilderment marring the cold, ethereal quality of her voice. “Customer?”

“Well, it's not _exactly_ the same,” Alfonse admits with a careless wave. “Still, could you not have sent word that you were running behind schedule? Of course things come up sometimes, and the day doesn't go as efficiently as you've planned it, but a quick message would have been no more than common courtesy. As it is, I've said my final goodbyes _thirty-nine times._ Do you know how embarrassing it is to bid your loved ones a tearful farewell each night, only to have to come slinking downstairs for breakfast the next morning, none the worse for wear? I _know_ there are people who think I made the entire thing up for attention! And I can only imagine what Father is going to say! _Oh, you've always been a late bloomer, Alfonse; I'm hardly surprised that you can't even die on schedule._ And another thing--”

“Enough.” The mist begins to swirl ominously, beginning as it wrap around him, stealing his heated indignation, stealing thought, stealing breath.

Finally, as he lets his eyes slip shut and bids a fond farewell to this mortal existence, a sharp shove in the midsection catches him off-guard. He staggers a few steps, groping for the surface of his night table to steady himself, and yelping in startled pain as he rams his toe right into the heavy wooden leg.

“Did...did you just shove me with your scythe?” he demands, bewildered, sparing a look down at his throbbing foot.

Hel does not smirk, because Hel is above such things, but she does nod in satisfaction.

“And the curse comes to completion.”

A long moment goes by as Alfonse attempts to process this.

“I'm sorry, _what_?” he finally manages. “I just stubbed my toe.”

“The curse of Hel is fearsome, is it not?”

“Um, no? Not...really? Wait, am I going to die of incredibly painful toe-related complications?”

“No.”

“Did I weaken the structural integrity of my furniture enough for it to fall on me and crush me to death as I'm getting back into bed?”

“No.”

“Is the floor going to open up and drop me into your horrifying realm of the dead?”

“...that is just absurd.”

“Then...what _is_ going to happen?”

“As I said,” Hel replies with an edge of annoyance, “the curse has reached its completion.”

“But...I'm not dead! Look, just try it again, okay? I don't mind waiting; after _five weeks_ , what's another few minutes?”

“One curse per...customer.”

“But you said I would die, and all I got was a stubbed toe! I want another curse!”

“ _One curse per customer,”_ Hel reiterates. “I do not make the rules, boy.”

“Yes, you do! That is literally what you do!”

“What a difficult child. I no longer want your soul.”

“Oh, _please_ excuse me for being _difficult,_ ” Alfonse implores, the words dripping with sarcasm. “Maybe it's because I haven't slept in forty days! I've been spending my nights rereading my favourite books because I thought I wouldn't get another chance, and the nine days without sleep that you originally set is one thing, but--”

“Alfonse!” shouts a familiar voice from the door, accompanied by repeated frantic thuds. “What's going on in there?”

“Nothing!” he calls. “Everything is under control, Kiran!”

“Is that Hel in there with you?!” The alarm in Sharena's voice is clear. “Hang on, Alfonse, we'll be right there!”

With a disinterested glance at the repeated deafening crashes of one protective little sister throwing herself repeatedly against a massive wooden door, Hel turns and glides towards the window.

“Please, you can't just— _and_ she's gone,” he sighs.

Just as he's about to settle into bed for a good long pout, the roar of splintering wood fills the room as the doors rip free of their hinges and flop loudly to the floor. Kiran quickly picks his way through the rubble, accompanied by the handful of Heroes who had taken to waiting with prince and summoner each night for the – presumed – end, and whom Alfonse has taken to ordering out of the room when it became painfully obvious that they had no idea what to say to a barely-post-adolescent boy during the last hour of his life.

“Alfonse! Are you okay?”

Tossing his book aside once again, he turns to assure Kiran that he's just fine because _some_ overlord of the Underworld doesn't seem to see the point in doing her job properly, but is derailed when a nightgown-clad blonde streak shoots across the room and into his arms.

“Why would you lock the door when you knew Hel could show up any minute?!” Sharena demands angrily, tears forming at the corners of her eyes as she pulls back briefly to glare at him. “You are _so lucky_ our doors are so flimsy!

“Yeah,” he sighs, patting her back gently and eyeing the some-hundred pounds of kindling strewn across the floor. “It's great.”

 

* * *

 

“So...Hel just...randomly decided _not_ to take your soul?”

“Yeah,” Alfonse sighs dejectedly, chin in his hands. “Apparently I'm too _difficult_ , just because I pointed out that being five weeks late without sending word is a little unprofessional.”

Kiran shoots a bewildered look at Anna, who simply shakes her head disapprovingly at what passes for customer support these days, and Sharena, who has yet to release her iron grip on her brother, or stop leaking happy tears.

“But...that means you're not going to die,” he points out hesitantly. “Isn't that a good thing?”

“You don't understand, Kiran!” Alfonse wails. “Over the past five weeks, I've made a lot of people very angry, or uncomfortable, or both! I told Grima and Grima that they aren't as scary as they think they are! I stole Armads and danced around a few steps out of Hector's reach, taunting him because his armour wouldn't let him move fast enough to catch me! I ate one of Gaius's gumdrops, right in front of him! I hit Father in the face with a banana cream pie, just because I've always wanted to! I wrote a long, rambling goodbye letter to Zacharias, half of which is utterly illegible because the ink ran where I cried all over it! I—gods, Kiran, I _asked Anna if I could borrow some orbs_ , because I wanted to die on my own terms, not Hel's, but then Anna got all teary-eyed and _gave me some orbs!_ Nothing I thought I knew is real! How am I supposed to go on living after that?!”

“Well...I mean, you should probably start by giving Anna back her orbs before she kills you for real,” Kiran suggests with a shrug.

With a look attesting to great personal sacrifice on her part, Anna sighs.

“No, keep them. Consider it a 'congratulations on not dying' gift.”

“I can't handle this bizarre new reality that I find myself trapped in!” Alfonse laments into the top of Sharena's head. She pats his back with a gentle, soothing noise.

“You just need a good night's sleep, Alfonse. I think staying up for five weeks straight is making you a little cranky.”

“Sharena, I appreciate the thought, but I hardly think sleep is going to repair all the bridges I've burned!”

Fed up with a combination of his own sleep deprivation and his close friend's poor attitude towards his second chance at life, Kiran grabs Alfonse tightly by both shoulders, ignoring Sharena's startled yelp as her brother is dragged away from her.

“Listen, buddy, I know you just managed to make your peace with death, and then you pissed her off as soon as she showed up and now you're in some sort of stupid customer service dispute with her--”

“It's not _stupid_ , Kiran! She said nine days, and it took her _forty_ to even show up! And when she finally did, all I got was a stubbed toe! I was supposed to _die_! You once told me a story about getting a barista fired when he took _three_ minutes to make your lattes instead of two, and forgot the sprinkles!”

“Well, if drinking the coffee was going to inevitably kill me, I probably wouldn't have been so angry with Chad! Alfonse, what I'm trying to say is that I _get_ it. I know everything seems scary and overwhelming right now, because you thought you were about to check out and none of this was going to be your problem anymore, but Sharena's right - things will look better after a good night's sleep. And you know that we'll do everything we can to help you readjust.”

Alfonse looks up quickly, a light of joyous relief breaking over his face, and Kiran winces, very aware that he's just made a grave error.

“Does that mean you'll help me write letters of apology to everyone I've interacted with in the last five weeks? Oh, Kiran, Anna, Sharena, thank-you!”

"No problem, Alfonse!" Sharena chirps with a decidedly forced smile. "Anything you need!"

"Way to go, Kiran," Anna grumbles under her breath. "First I gave away twenty perfectly good orbs, and now I have to spend a day writing apology letters? Think it's too late to get Hel back here to take  _my_ soul?"

Kiran can hardly fault the good commander; he's kind of wondering the same thing.

 


End file.
